Nicola Sturgeon FM: (that’s Fashion Model)

We are bombarded daily with images of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, usually dressed in modest work suits. A new photo shoot with Vogue certainly presents her in a different light.

Seen standing in the light of a tall window, it takes a second look to recognise her in a short-sleeved Holly Fulton sweater and floral skirt. Her hair has also been styled differently and includes highlights.

Ms Sturgeon, who whose regular wardrobe has been supplied by Edinburgh boutique Totty Rocks, has previously expressed frustration over the pressures on women to look the part.

However, in the shoot and interview in the upmarket fashion magazine she concedes that how politicians look – men as well as women – has a huge bearing on what the public think of them.

Speaking about former Labour leader Ed Miliband, she says: “I accept that Ed’s image and how he looked became a big part of how people perceived him.

“But I still don’t think it’s quite the same. Literally every time I’m on camera, as well as there being commentary on what I’ve said, there’ll be commentary on what my hair looked like, what I wear. Often it’s written in the most hideous and quite cruel way. And yes men aren’t immune to that, but even Ed Miliband I don’t think experienced it quite that way. But I’m actually inured to it now.”

She goes on to speak about being a modern politician in an environment traditionally dominated by men (“I do struggle to identify an occasion when I was held back because I’m a woman… You don’t think about it at the time, but looking back on it, of course”), and reveals her self-critical side.

“Almost every day as I replay the day in my head, I think, I should have done that differently,” she said. “I’m quite hypercritical of myself… It’s a very Scottish thing, always thinking that you’ve got to be that bit better than everyone else to be good enough.”

Read the full interview in the October issue of British Vogue, on newsstands this Thursday, 10 September.